General Stocking History

This website focuses on trout stocking and management Rufus Woods Lake, but please note that the Colville Tribes Resident Fish Hatchery also stocks trout in many other waterbodies on the Colville Reservation. For those stocking records see the following database website: www.cctrfdata.org.

Over time, different agencies have utilized a variety of tags and marks to distinguish release groups from each other, as well as from wild trout. A brief description and illustration of each mark type and the compiled stocking history for Rufus Woods Lake's Rainbow Trout is provided below.

Adipose Fin Clip: a common way to externally mark salmonid fish is to remove the adipose fin.

Coded Wire Tag: tiny pieces (<1mm) of magnetized wire implanted into the snouts of marked fish. For a simple presence/absence test, the tags can be detected with a Coded Wire Tag detector wand. Further information requires tag removal and visual analysis of the tag, which is lethal. Many of our release groups will deploy a coded wire tag in conjunction with a clipped adipose fin.

External Anchor (Floy) Tag: individually numbered plastic tags that are attached behind the dorsal fin.